It’s been an long time since my last post but if things go as planned I will be posting a lot more, especially about creating a handmade wardrobe (yay!). Since I’m going to be doing plenty more sewing I needed to find something to use as pattern weights as the scissors/jar/ceramic chicken just wasn’t cutting it. (Totally unintentional pun. ha ha.)

After a failed visit to the hardware store I decided to research bean bag type weights online.

Pinterest provides many different tutorials. I decided on the pyramid shape because I figure it takes up less space on the pattern but has more weight then a square shaped weight. There was a couple tutorials that used 2 pieces of fabric to make the pyramid but that just seemed unnecessary. Why make more work for yourself?

A Super Easy Pattern Weights Tutorial by Anna Wilson is exactly that, super easy, and the one I followed. You can find it on her blog Tea and a Sewing Machine. For this project you can use up some of those fabric scraps every sewist has. I used two fat quarters that I’ve had for awhile.

I followed her suggestion of cutting 18cm x 9cm rectangles, which works perfect for me, but really you can use any size by scaling it up of down.

For the filler I also used rice, because we have plenty of it, but while she hand sewed the seam after filling the pyramids I sewed it up with the machine. This creates a little flappy thing on that edge but for me it’s worth the time saved from hand sewing. Just make sure you have the raw edge folded over enough to catch it with the stitches.

It took about 30 minutes to make 12 pattern weights. They work so well I wish I had done it sooner. I really like how the triangle bottoms fit the corners on patterns. Now to master those curves with the rotary cutter!

conclusion: 

These quick and easy pattern weights are working great for me, but what type of pattern weights work best for you? Share what you use in the comments below.